At best it shows political bad judgment and at worst it shows a lack of personal commitment to a principle that religious conservatives and political conservatives believe in, which is being generous with our money.”

“And so I just think it’s a mistake. And look, Santorum and (Newt) Gingrich, these two candidates, they’re not the first to appear on the low end of this spectrum. Every four years we see it. And im always surprised. I am always surprised that someone running for president or who actually becomes president doesn’t have a record of a higher percentage of giving.”

DeMoss stressed that he’s not brought up the topic of Santorum and Gingrich’s charitable giving with Romney headquarters. In his own life, DeMoss said he gives away 20 percent of his family income to charitable causes.

“This is just something I feel strongly about myself,” he said. “We’ve been blessed. I’ve been very fortunate in my life. And I’m not running for anything. But if I were running I’d make sure that number stayed up there because I think it looks good.”

Santorum gave just over 2 percent of his income to charity over the four years covered in the returns he released, reaching its lowest percentage in 2010 at 1.76 percent. For the same year, Romney gave 13.8 percent of his income to charity, and President Obama donated 14.2 percent. (Newt Gingrich, for comparison, gave away 2.6 percent)

Evangelicals for Mitt provides comments as a way to engage in a public and respectiful discussion about articles and issues. Any comment may be removed by the editors for violating common decency or tempting flames.

3 Responses to Santorum,the Stingy?

Nancy, great posts. I especially like your piece in USA Today. Folks like you have gone a long way in healing wounds inflicted on Mormons by other Evangelicals. I still harbor the hope that at some point our detractors will decide to ask us what we believe and our side of the story rather than manufacturing what they think our side is.

Back to politics. I find myself defending Rick Santorum more than I feel comfortable in doing. As a traditional conservative Republican I feel compelled to do so. After all, Rick is one of the good guys. We just have a few disagreements with him over political things.

This entire birth control thing is contrived and is intended to give cover to Obama by creating a problem where none exists. This has become an issue that should not be and it would not exist without the collusion of the broadcast media. That makes it a conservative Republican issue not just a Rick Santorum issue. Keep up the good work.

There was an interesting lead post yesterday over @ Race42012 by Donna re: Santorum, whom she supports. She’s an avid evangelical Christian and her post opened my eyes a little more to at least her thinking and probably others. When is comes to social, defense and economic issues, she sees them it that order. She believes if America takes care of the social issues, primarily abortion, God will bless America in her defense and economic problems. Therefore, the way to defend the country and fix the economy is to vote in a hard-core, died in the wool social conservative and God will take care of the rest.

She didn’t say this, but on the flip side I can see where those who believe Mormonism is a satanic cult would fear voting for Mitt: If America votes for a member of a satanic cult, the country will be cursed.